March 13, 2019
Dearest Readers,
Today On This Date visits Harvard and the Krakow Jewish ghetto and Top of the Charts reviews the #1 songs and album today in 1965. Philosophy 101 has some drivel on living your very best life.
Cordially, and with many thanks for reading,
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn
On This Date:
In 1639 – New College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, adopts the name Harvard College, in honor of the late Rev. John Harvard, who game the college his library and half his estate when he died. Founded in 1636, Harvard would graduate its first class in 1642 and would remain the only college in the American colonies until the establishment of William and Mary in 1693.
In 1943 – The remaining 10,000 Jews are deported from their ghetto in Krakow, Poland. About 80 percent, those deemed fit to work, are sent to a nearby labor camp while those deemed unfit for work are killed. Any stragglers were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Krakow labor camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in January 1945.
Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1965:
Hot 100 – Eight Days a Week…The Beatles (1st of two weeks)
Soul Chart – Shotgun…Junior Walker and the All-Stars (1st of four non-consecutive weeks)
Country Chart – I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail…Buck Owens (4th of five weeks)
Album Chart – Mary Poppins Soundtrack…Various Artists (1st of 14 non-consecutive weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard.
Numbers Racket
10,673: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
22.122: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
608: days until Election Day 2020.
Philosophy 101
The whole pursuit of this dream has allowed me to live my best life, that makes me hopefully the best version of me.
Alex Honnold
In June 2017 Mr Honnold climbed a very large rock in Yellowstone National Park known as El Capitan, which is a 3,000 foot wall of sheer granite, without any human or mechanical aid – known as free soloing in the sport. By any measure, this is a supreme accomplishment, a landmark achievement in human adventure, a complete triumph of human spirit and will. Today’s quote regards that feat. Like any person who accomplishes anything of merit, he was completely focused on what he wanted to do and put whatever time and effort was required to accomplish his goal.
It’s a lesson us mortals can serve us mortals well, too. The pursuit of our very best life, the pursuit of the very best versions of us, must show the same diligence and courage.
Now, as we are fond of saying here, it really doesn’t matter what that pursuit is. Mr Honnold free solos 3,000 feet of sheer, perpendicular granite because that is what he is compelled to do from deep inside. It didn’t matter that success was not guaranteed, and perhaps not even likely, and that failure meant a rather messy death. His marching orders from Mother Nature were clear: attempt to climb this rock. So he did.
We can be no less focused in the pursuit of our very best life and it doesn’t really what it is we are pursuing, either. All that matters is that we are answering to whatever summons us from deep inside. Like Honnold, we, too, can have the wisdom to know what we are about and the courage to go and live the life we were meant to live and the patience to see it through to the very end. When we do these things, what is meant to happen in our life does happen.
Our very best life may not be documented by a film crew or cause us to live down the ages. Or it might, you never know. But whether it does or not is of no consequence. All that matters is that we follow our hearts and trust our instincts because our heart will tell us where to go and our instincts will show us how to get there. When we do that, the life we are meant to live is there for the taking.
Alex Honnold is 33 and originally from Sacramento. He has spent no small portion of his adult life living out of a van.